Academics and Wikipedia 

Among many academics, Wikipedia has a poor reputation. It’s not uncommon for college professors to discourage students from using the site or penalize them for quoting, citing or referencing it in their written work. Usually left unstated, the assumption behind this attitude is that, since it does not go through the channels of peer review characteristic of academic research, Wikipedia content doesn’t meet the right standards of accuracy and verifiability, and is, therefore, inherently unreliable. In this way, academia’s model of legitimation via peer review (in which quality control is ensured by vetted scholars in positions of institutional power) is pitted against Wikipedia’s more malleable and decentralized model (in which quality control is distributed across a wide network of agents known as “Wikipedians” who build content and fact-check one another collectively).

This resistance is hardly surprising given that we academics are trained from the earliest stages of our professional formation to equate scholarship with the system of peer-review that has ruled higher education, by some accounts, since the 1600s. For many of us, scholarship is synonymous with peer-reviewed works, which is to say, publications anonymously evaluated and approved by experts in the field. Measured against this standard, of course, Wikipedia’s model of knowledge production looks more than vulgar and unrefined. It looks positively dubious. By shunning legitimation by the few in favor of legitimation by the many, this model seems to do away with the very notion of expertise, and to confuse what the Greeks called doxa (opinion) for episteme (knowledge). Since anyone and everyone can be a Wikipedian, or so the argument goes, anything and everything can end up on Wikipedia, regardless of whether it’s true or false. 

While we cannot deny that Wikipedia’s model of knowledge production has its limits (which model doesn’t?), it is revealing that those who oppose it most feverishly tend to be those who are least familiar with it, with what it is and how it works. For instance, even critics who know that behind every Wikipedia page there is a large community of contributors who fact-check, update, and cross-reference its claims may not realize that behind this community there is a complex constellation of rules, guidelines, and principles regulating the behavior of its members. Yes, practically anyone can become a Wikipedian. But this does not mean that Wikipedia is a digital Wild West where “anything goes.”

Thanks to its internal quality control mechanisms, Wikipedia often yields content that matches,  in terms of epistemic merit, the best of what the academic system of peer review has to offer. As early as 2005, a mere four years after Wikipedia’s launch, the prestigious journal Nature published an article showing that entries on the new site surpassed those in the Encyclopedia Britannica in terms of accuracy and credibility, putting the newcomer above its more prestigious cousin as far as epistemic reliability is concerned. Since then, the line between academia’s centralized and Wikipedia’s decentralized models of legitimation has only continued to blur. Nowadays, more and more academics are incorporating Wikipedia into their courses in one way or another, with a few even suggesting that academic scholarship should emulate Wikipedia’s malleable approach to knowledge creation in order to meet the informational and pedagogical challenges of the new century.  

Wikipedia In the Classroom

In early 2024, I partnered with Wiki Education (a nonprofit that seeks to improve Wikipedia) to incorporate a Wikipedia assignment into a course I planned to teach that summer entitled “Humanities 315: The History of Science From the Scientific Revolution.” Beginning from the Copernican revolution in astronomical physics, this course traced the evolution of modern science through the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, paying attention to the progression of scientific concepts “from above,” as well as to the social, cultural, and political forces that shape scientific rationality “from below.”

At the time, Wiki Education was promoting an initiative designed to close a gap in Wikipedia’s archive. By Wikipedia’s own admission, scientists from traditionally underrepresented racial and ethnic groups (Latinx, Black, Asian, Pacific-Islander, Indigenous, etc.) are significantly underrepresented on “the free encyclopedia,” resulting in a problematic imbalance. So, Wiki Education was on the hunt for professors who might be interested in incorporating an assignment into their classes that would put students to work on closing this gap. The basic idea was that students would become temporary Wikipedians and write biographical entries for influential scientists from minoritarian backgrounds who did not yet have a presence on the site.A two-in-one package, the assignment sought to educate students about the ins-and-outs of Wikipedia while giving them an opportunity to help address a concrete racial injustice tied to digital representation.

Given that my course dealt explicitly with how classism, patriarchy, and white supremacy have influenced the history of Western science (and given my own interest in the relationship between racial oppression and the politics of knowledge), I decided to apply. Upon hearing I was accepted, I quickly edited my course syllabus to make room for the five-week long assignment, which asked students to:

1. Create a Wikipedia profile 
2. Familiarize themselves with Wikipedia’s “backend” software program (where the content that will eventually appears on the site is created, edited, and fact-checked)
3. Select a scientist from an underrepresented community from a list provided by Wiki Education
4. Conduct research on that scientist’s personal history, educational background, and contributions to the fields of science and technology 
5. Write, in groups of four or five, an entry on that scientist adhering to Wikipedia’s policies concerning citations and references, and 
6. Publish their entry (pending approval by site)

Students didn’t have to reach the final stage (publication) to receive full credit for the assignment, but they did have to complete all the steps leading up to it. And they were graded based on how far into the assignment they got and on the quality of their individual contributions to the collective writing effort. (I should mention that, as part of the initiative, Wiki Education provided support in the form of a $700 stipend and two staff members who helped answer student questions about how to create entries on the site). 

Summer came and went, and the assignment was by and large a success. Though there were hiccups along the way (some students produced entries that didn’t meet Wikipedia’s standard for publication, while others didn’t bother creating a profile in the first place), the majority of students reported enjoying every stage of the process. 

 For starters, many were thrilled to learn about how Wikipedia pages are made. Although none of my students were Wikipedians prior to the class, all of them reported visiting the site on a regular basis, even when professors explicitly warned against it. Wikipedia was already a key part of their online experience, a recurring digital landing spot. Thus, seeing the backend program, familiarizing themselves with the platform’s rules and regulations, and seeing a collectivist model of knowledge production in action helped demystify the site, which in turn gave them a more nuanced understanding of its various strengths and limitations. For example, the assignment enabled them to see that even if Wikipedia content isn’t put through the grind of traditional methods of peer review, it is subject to norms of accuracy and verification that make it more reliable than the average blog, website, or social media profile. At the same time, this behind-the-scenes access clarified for them that while Wikipedia may be good for general information about a large variety of topics, it’s not the place to go for original research and innovative discoveries. 

“Real” Writing 

The most common refrain I heard from students as we debriefed about the experience at the end of the summer semester was that they were proud to have finally worked on “something real.” “I felt like this was my first real assignment in a college class,” one said. Another followed with: “It was more real than writing the usual essay.” 

I confess: I didn’t respond well to these claims. I balked at the suggestion that traditional classroom assignments (the weekly response, the midterm essay, the final project, etc.) were somehow less substantive or less real than assignments that simply happened to have the name of a recognizable organization attached to them. Was writing for Wikipedia readers really more “real” than writing for me, or were my students just awe-struck by the fact that they were contributing to one of the most famous online platforms? 

It was a fair question. Or so I thought. 

After mulling over their comments for a couple of days, however, I realized that my reaction was…well, reactionary. Rather than listening to what my students were telling me about their experience of the assignment, I chose to worry about what I thought their comments meant about my teaching style, which regularly features the kinds of assignments they characterized as not-so-real. By projecting this insecurity onto my students, I failed to listen to them and to do what every professor should aspire to do, which is meet students halfway in conversation. To course-correct, I had to ask myself a question that demanded more careful consideration: In invoking the so-called reality of this assignment, what were my students flagging for me about assignments, homework, and education more generally? What did this concept mean to them such that it seemed to illuminate their experience? No sooner than I framed the problem in this manner, I came to see their comments in a new light–no longer as veiled criticisms of my pedagogy, but as sincere critiques of our education system and what traditional approaches to pedagogy do to students’ relationship to writing. 

From an early age, students are taught to write for their professors. Every student knows that what they produce in the classroom will rarely, if ever, be seen by anyone other than the person who has the power to give them an ‘A’ or an ‘F.’ Thus, for most students, writing is tangled up from the get-go with complex dynamics of power, discipline, and submission. Given the asymmetrical nature of the student-teacher relationship, it’s only a matter of time before students learn to give their teachers what they (the students) think they (their teachers) want. So, students master a skill that isn’t easy to unlearn. They learn to write exclusively  for “the Professor,” that amorphous character whose power in the classroom is virtually unchecked. From elementary school to college, the task is the same: Here is a topic, now write about it for an audience of exactly one (where the “one” in question is the person with power over you)! 

One consequence of writing under these conditions is that students are never asked to imagine what they might have to (or want to) say to a broader audience, by which I mean an audience composed of different kinds of people, each of which with their own reasons for wanting to listen in. This, I now believe, is what the Wikipedia assignment offered my students for the first time in their lives. It offered them an audience that wasn’t “the Professor,” an audience of not-me. And my students experienced this as a breath of fresh air. This new audience freed them from me, but it also freed them to imagine a host of other subjects in the position of “reader,” which altered their psychological landscape. I still remember one student in particular, a humanities major, who said: “It’s kinda cool that my mom might read this. I know she’ll want to show it to her friends and to my aunts. Maybe it will help her understand what I’ve been doing in college!” For that student, this assignment was more real. It was more real because it had the power to touch her social world and maybe even make it tilt. Had any other assignment ever done that? 

Furthermore, the mere prospect of having one’s writing “out there” (read: in the World Wide Web) was also transformative for some students. For them, the overarching question was no longer “What should I write in order to get the grade I want?” but “Knowing that strangers may read what I write, what do I actually want to say and how?” Even when my students didn’t reach the final stage of publishing their work on Wikipedia, the possibility that their work might have a life beyond the classroom was enough to shake things up and give them a glimpse of what another relationship to writing might look like.

Conclusion

Of course, I do not want to romanticize the Wikipedia assignment. Some of my students were annoyed by the assignment from the start. Others found the backend program counterintuitive and hard to use (and on this point, I concur). But even the students who complained about the nuts and bolts of the task later reported feeling happy about having participated in a pedagogical exercise with a political mission: helping scientists from underrepresented backgrounds receive the recognition they deserve. 

In effect, I could say that the Wikipedia assignment turned my classroom into an interesting house of mirrors where diversity was reflected off of multiple surfaces at once. Firstly, I, a professor of color, was teaching a class about the historical exclusion of minorities from the modern scientific project. Secondly, I was teaching this material to a highly diverse group of undergraduates attending at a Hispanic-Serving (HSI) and Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution (AANAPISI). And finally, I was asking these students at this institution to help correct one of the ways in which this historical exclusion continues to be felt in the here and now—namely, the “gap” in Wikipedia’s coverage of the history of science and technology. My hope is that by learning to move between these layers of reflection, students came out of my summer class with a better appreciation of the gaps that have shaped our past and continue to inform our present. 

Interested in incorporating a Wikipedia assignment into your course? Visit teach.wikiedu.org to learn more about the free resources, digital tools, and staff support that Wiki Education offers to postsecondary instructors in the United States and Canada.

I teach media effects to professional public communication students. I used the Wikipedia assignment as a final collaborative project in a 300 level class that meets the diversity requirement for Newhouse undergraduate students across majors including journalism, advertising, public relations, television, radio, and film, music business, and more.

This course is situated at the intersection of American history, psychology, and the media industry to help contextualize how media impacts society, specifically with respect to perpetuating long standing disparities. I was excited to incorporate the Wikipedia assignment into this course to demonstrate how the absence of available information (and perspectives) is just as important as the information that is available. Especially in the wake of the 20th century where an exponential increase in content and accessibility can cause people to believe that what is not recorded is not valuable (Corsbie-Massay, 2021, p54).

Project Process

Students began with a personal exploration of how they use Wikipedia and what they have been told about the quality of information on Wikipedia. Almost everyone reported relying  on Wikipedia for context at some point, even though past teachers and instructors repeatedly warned them that the information on Wikipedia was not reliable. However, only a handful (<10%) had ever attempted to edit a Wikipedia page. 

We then read “Interrupting epistemicide: A practical framework for naming, identifying, and ending epistemic injustice in the information professions” from Patin et al. (2021) and discussed how the absence of information impacted ongoing institutions and systemic disparities. We also had a guest lecture from the University Librarian affiliated with Newhouse that described the resources available through the library and the importance of discerning, digitizing, and distributing information. 

I then provided students with a list of locally relevant topics that did not have Wikipedia pages, or whose pages were categorized as “Stub.” This list was wide ranging and included neighborhoods (33%) and local non profits (26%), as well as gay bars, historical markers, and even the jail located just 1 mile away from our classroom. Students indicated their preference and were paired accordingly. At the end of the semester, each pair recorded and posted a 4m presentation to the class webpage answering the following questions…

1. What did you find most interesting about writing a Wikipedia Article?
2. What did you find most difficult about writing a Wikipedia Article?
3. How did the class content connect to this experience?
4. What should readers of your article be sensitized to?
5. How do you hope future Wikipedians will edit/add to your article? 

What I Observed: Generational differences in working “under the hood”

The students really struggled with the interface of Wikipedia, which was interesting for a generation that has been labeled “tech savvy.” The project reminded them that there is a difference between content and technology: Creating content has become so user-friendly, creators do not need  a proper understanding of how things work “under the hood.” I don’t know if any students attended the office hours held by Wiki Education (then again, few students come to my own office hours) and although they completed the exercises associated with the project (for which they received credit), they moved quickly through the assignments and still expressed confusion. In the end almost all of the pairs made it work, but those who waited until the last minute really suffered. 

Furthermore, only a handful of students sought information that was not already digitized (e.g., newspapers, library resources), despite extensive discussion regarding the digital divide and information injustice.  I thought that public communications students would be excited to publicly communicate the information from the not-so-distant past, but several students stated in their reflections that they couldn’t find additional information online and gave up. This surprised me as  I thought I had made it clear that most sources existed before the internet and  if something is not online then that means it simply hasn’t yet been found. In my opinion, the students did not yet recognize that digitizing the past is a desperate social need. 

What My Students Observed: Wikipedia is not a source, it is a resource.

Many described the strange feeling of being on the other side of the Wikipedia interface but by the end of the semester, they reported a greater understanding of how Wikipedia is made. This helped improve their ability to use Wikipedia as a resource, including contributing and editing. Many journalism students also expressed that the objective lens required by Wikipedia did not align with how they were taught to write; they were taught to share objective information through a subjective lens (i.e., storytelling) to engage the audience. The project also revealed the collective backend labor involved in every Wikipedia contribution. Together, these observations help disabuse the students of  talking points they heard  prior to the project (i.e., “You can’t trust Wikipedia”). 

Students ultimately connected this exercise to recognizing epistemic injustice as well as the role of Wikipedia in working to overcome social disparities. They saw ways to contribute to the public discourse and elevate public awareness through Wikipedia as a popular independent information resource. We talked about hyperlinking local entities (e.g., non-profits, neighborhoods) to other state or national pages with more web traffic, as well as the importance of information evolution (e.g., information was not just “outdated,” it needed to be “updated,” and this ongoing gap always provided new stories and angles to pursue). Overall, they responded positively to the exercise as it gave them insight into a staple of their information ecosystem (Introne, et al., 2024). 

In Conclusion

I would definitely do this project again. It was an honor to digitize and distribute information about local entities. Having said that, the learning curve for the students was sharp as was the learning curve for me as the instructor. In the future, I would probably dedicate a lecture to going through some of the exercises as a group to ensure students do not rush through this important material and that everyone was on the same page (literally!). But at the end of the semester, I really felt like we were helping advance a cause associated with a popular quote from author and activist Grace Lee Boggs: “History is not the past. It is the stories we tell about the past” (Boggs & Kurashige, 2012, p. 79). Therefore by synthesizing and digitizing stories from the past, we are literally doing the work of writing history. 

Interested in incorporating a Wikipedia assignment into your course? Visit teach.wikiedu.org to learn more about the free resources, digital tools, and staff support that Wiki Education offers to postsecondary instructors in the United States and Canada.

For over a decade I have taught a history and political science course on American citizenship that coincides with the fall election season in even-numbered years. In my usual version, students wrote concise research papers posted to a public-facing website (one which, it must be admitted, garners negligible page views). So I already had oriented the course slightly towards student work designed to engage with the general public, away from the kind of final assignment destined to sit in my learning management system’s gated garden forever, likely not even retrieved by its own author. Joining Wiki Education for Fall 2024 and having my 20 students live-edit Wikipedia articles, I suspected, could be a better way of achieving course goals of having students see the relevance of their research in real time, with authentic stakes. 

My students (and I) definitely found a Wikipedia-editing project challenging. Before the class began I selected about 40 course-related articles rated S or C class from which to choose, but they varied greatly in length, complexity, and research potential. There is a steep learning curve to navigating Wikipedia’s editing platform, even though Wiki Education’s tutorials are well-designed to guide students through the basics and get them editing confidently. I had to consider how much class time to devote to project instruction, debriefing, and troubleshooting, reducing some instructional time on other topics. Only a few students easily found scholarly reference material or saw immediate ways to improve their article, while others kept digging but couldn’t find many new sources or and got stuck on how to change what was already there.

Grading posed its own difficulties, which came up frequently in the weekly office hours held by the Wiki Education team. How could I standardize performance expectations when the articles were themselves so different? How would students know they were “done”? Would I grant an equivalent grade to those who added references or images vs. those who rearranged section text vs.  those who cleaned up jargon? If I wasn’t grading on word count, number of sources added, or longevity of edits, then what, precisely, were students being evaluated on? Especially as a first-timer, I found it helpful to talk with other instructors working through these issues. Focusing more on process and progress – evaluated partly by weekly journals and how well they stayed on track with the project schedule – rather than final product quality, resolved some (but not all) of the grading concerns. The dashboard is extremely well-designed both for student users and for faculty instructors, giving me clear access to their work and allowing progress-tracking throughout the semester.  

Despite these struggles, my students “got” the assignment in ways that were truly invigorating. For many of them Wikipedia had been a taboo source, one they’re not allowed to cite in college papers and had been actively steered away from in the past – yet one they all used regularly, sometimes guiltily. This project made them better users of the site, as it introduced them to the community of Wikipedians and their robust editorial policies, all of which was invisible to them before. Their audience became clearer: they weren’t writing just for their professor, but for general readers like themselves. Contributing to articles on voting rights, immigration law and citizenship requirements – in an election year, no less – lent urgency and importance to their work. 

In reflective essays at the end of the project, my students expressed genuine pride in what they’d accomplished. 14 out of 18 respondents gave themselves an A or B grade, citing specific improvements to their article and describing the level of effort, time, and care they put into the project (I will note I tended to concur with those self-assessments!). Through class peer review and feedback they got from fellow Wikipedia editors, they got a better grasp on the collaborative nature of knowledge, as comments like these attest:

“I also realized that people present information in different ways. Large projects like this one highlight that including a variety of perspectives makes the information richer and more meaningful, allowing us to share different insights on important topics.” 

“I thought that you could just add any information on Wikipedia and that it was easy to put in false information on the platform but after seeking the rules and expectations Wikipedia has, I realized its sole focus is for others to share together on important topics. It is a great way for minds to come together.” 

“I had to make sure to provide information directly from the source without injecting anything I thought or bias into it, even subconsciously. It was genuinely a great learning experience in that regard. Even beyond learning about Wikipedia itself, this project serves as a great thought exercise to really probe your mind and contemplate how you process and regurgitate information.” 

“I would say I learned a lot more about the process of research than the actual research topic itself as it was pretty straightforward … The overall process of understanding the topic to finding credible sources that you have to make sure to insert very specifically according to the guidelines was definitely intensive.” 

“I definitely feel better suited for research projects in the future after this, as I feel I’ve learned the importance of adjusting your scope in research as well as prioritizing credible sources.” 

I asked my students if I should repeat this project the next time I taught the course. I fully expected the class would tell me it was a good one-time experiment. Instead, I was amazed to see 17 of the 18 respondents said Yes or Maybe to that survey question. 

“Being able to see edits and the community working firsthand, along with how deeply they look into edits and sources, has been a great way to understand how one of the largest websites in the world functions. It would be great if more students, and people in general, could see this firsthand and understand this… I will genuinely go forward having much more faith in Wikipedia, along with being able to check sources when I’m skeptical, and plan to tell others about this exact thing. Overall it might be worth further experimenting how to go about it, but I’d rate the project 8/10 and can certainly say I learned something important to apply to real life from it.” 

“I loved this project, it felt like we did more than just a final project. We did something to help more people and if we continue to be passionate about this type of work we can continue to work on it moving forward.” 

“The project was crucial in the improvement of our analytical and professional writing skills. I enjoyed [peer review] as it provided me with a strong foundation of suggestions I should always apply to my writing. It was awesome to contribute to academic content on the internet.” 

“This was out of my comfort zone for assignments since it took learning a whole new system … I felt hesitant to add information and contribute as much as I could because I was conscious of, ‘is this the wrong thing to add’ or ‘if I take this part out will affect how the reader understands the article,’ but overall the assignment was interesting and it took learning a topic to a whole new level.” 

The students in Citizen Nation at Worcester State University in Fall 2024 edited 19 articles. They added 9.65K new words (many of which are still there as of this writing), 115 new references (most from academic database references), and have gotten 288k article views. The possibilities – and results – of adapting my standard research project into a Wiki Education collaboration exceeded all my expectations this term. I’m sure I’ll be back, in the next U.S. election cycle. 

-Tona Hangen, Professor of History, Worcester State University

Explore Dr. Hangen’s syllabus

Interested in incorporating a Wikipedia assignment into your course? Visit teach.wikiedu.org to learn more about the free resources, digital tools, and staff support that Wiki Education offers to postsecondary instructors in the United States and Canada.

I began teaching with the Wikipedia assignment in the spring of 2018. At the time, I sought an alternative to the standard term paper that had been, and likely remains, the staple of most college history courses. My motivation was to find an assignment that students would enjoy completing and that I would enjoy grading. Over my previous six years of university teaching, I developed a dread for grading term papers as it became apparent that most students either did not have the time or did not see the point in writing a well-researched argumentative paper. Moreover, I noticed that many of my students were developing bad habits in their rush to complete term papers, including committing to an argument before establishing a research question, cherry-picking sources that confirmed unfounded assumptions, and ignoring counterevidence. I desired an assignment that would reinforce the teaching of historical methodology and leverage the accessibility of the internet, allowing students to reach a broader audience, which I hoped would motivate them to take greater pride in their work.

After speaking with colleagues and searching the internet for ideas, I stumbled upon the Wiki Education website and found the Wikipedia assignment. Despite my lack of experience editing or authoring Wikipedia pages, I was drawn to the assignment because it facilitates experiential learning by requiring students to apply the knowledge acquired through course readings, lectures, and research to a public-facing project. In my US history survey course, for example, I use the Wikipedia assignment instead of a final paper to evaluate students’ ability to do the work of a historian by choosing a topic, developing a research question, selecting and evaluating sources, and writing a historical narrative. 

I also use the assignment to help students build social and professional skills applicable beyond the classroom. To promote peer collaboration in larger classes, I have students work in pairs. Admittedly, most groan when they hear this is a group project; however, by the end of the semester, they overwhelmingly express appreciation for their partner and the flexibility the assignment provides to capitalize on each person’s strengths. For example, those interested in computer programming and coding tend to enjoy learning about wikitext and the formatting aspects of the assignment. For others, conducting research, locating images, videos, and sound clips, or writing the text of the article is preferred. While I require them to work in pairs, students decide how to manage their workload by deciding who does what and evaluating each other’s performance at the end of the term.   

To facilitate student-teacher mentoring, I require students to meet with me throughout the semester to approve their topics and receive feedback on sources and drafts. These interactions help break down the reluctance and intimidation students feel towards interacting with authority figures and often lead to future opportunities to advise them about their degree progress, university resources, and career opportunities. To teach information and media literacy, I have students turn in an annotated bibliography halfway through the term. Although not a required part of the Wikipedia assignment, I find that it reinforces the dashboard’s trainings on evaluating sources according to the credibility of the author and publication. It also teaches students to pay as much, if not more, attention to the sources used in a publication than the text itself. 

I have used the Wikipedia assignment in thirteen courses over the past six years and have been thrilled by the results. Overall, my students have published 180 new articles, edited an additional 492 articles, and added 8,500 references to Wikipedia! Incredibly, their work has received over 13 million views as of spring 2024. But the best part is that my students admit they enjoy the assignment. 

Here are a few examples of what students appreciate about the Wikipedia assignment: 

“The Wikipedia project we had over the course of the semester was very effective in getting us all to participate in the learning process. It helped us to be more involved in research and in learning how to be historians.”

“I loved the Wikipedia project we worked on throughout the semester. We got to pick our own topic and I appreciated what it taught me about doing accurate historical research.”

“I loved the Wikipedia Assignment in this class and using our research skills to be able to put something useful out onto the internet.”

“The incorporation of making a Wikipedia article was the best way to actually be part of making and recording history.”

As reflected in the comments above, students relish the “hands-on” opportunity provided by the Wikipedia assignment to apply what they learn through a medium that allows them to create something that makes a public contribution beyond the classroom. And this is the primary reason why I continue to teach with Wikipedia; it encourages students to become more informed knowledge producers rather than passive consumers of information.

Interested in incorporating a Wikipedia assignment into your courses? Visit teach.wikiedu.org to learn more about the free resources, digital tools, and staff support that Wiki Education offers to postsecondary instructors in the United States and Canada. 

What is feminist praxis? 

To start discussing potential answers to this question, we can first look up the word, praxis, in Wiktionary, and review its definitions. In English, praxis can mean “the practical application of any branch of learning,” but there are other uses and definitions. To dig further, we can check out the reference, which at the time of this writing takes us to the Oxford English Dictionary. From there, we can find out how meanings and uses have changed overtime and across subjects. We can also see how the word praxis in politics and philosophy has been used to mean the application of theories and ideas to sociopolitical activities. If you have access to multiple dictionaries or editions, we can compare different uses and definitions across sources. Now we are one step closer to discussing what feminist praxis may be.

Next, we can explore how the word praxis is used across different contexts via Wikipedia. We find out that the term is often used to describe “the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, embodied, realized, applied or put into practice.” If we recognize that praxis refers to a series of actions in relation to different ways of thinking, reasoning, and understanding, we can explore what that process may entail, how these processes change, and what their ultimate goals may be. We can also evaluate how this understanding emerged by examining the references listed at the bottom of the article and discuss relevant sources that could potentially be included. Then we can delve deeper into what feminism may look like in practice, how feminist ideas may evolve, and what ultimate aspirations of feminist praxis may entail. 

Could incorporating Wikipedia assignments be part of feminist praxis? 

Despite unequal access to digital technology, free online resources like Wiktionary and Wikipedia are remarkable for fostering critical conversations without paywalls. If you are a faculty working at a higher education institution, you likely have access to lots of research materials like books, peer-reviewed articles, journals, periodicals, databases, archives, and media through the university library. However, that is not the case for most people. Facts and information are expensive and not always accessible. I often joke with my students that I write papers that hardly anyone reads, and I am sure many faculty feel the same way. If you are not part of some established research ecosystem, most knowledge products are inaccessible, which makes it harder for the general public to learn new ideas and unfamiliar topics that are important for engaging in critical dialogues. 

While Wikipedia boasts an impressive amount of free content, it also suffers from significant gaps. One of the most frequently highlighted issues is gender bias on Wikipedia, largely due to the fact that men make up the majority of contributors. That is probably old news for many but given the geographical reach and the volume of traffic to Wikipedia, it’s crucial for educators to reflect critically on the knowledge production process and address this bias. Doing so will ensure that Wikipedia becomes a more reliable and comprehensive source of encyclopedic information. With the goal of fostering more informed and inclusive discussions about social issues, I started incorporating Wikipedia assignments into one of my graduate courses during the Fall of 2021, during the shift from virtual to in-person learning. 

I believe incorporating Wikipedia assignments can contribute to feminist praxis.

Wiki Education’s focus on social impact resonated with me during the public health emergency. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the rapid evolution of scientific knowledge, misinformation, and the exacerbation of disparities. I thought my students and I could contribute to equitable knowledge access by updating references, filling content gaps, and learning to navigate open collaboration. I share my experiences below.

My course is a discussion-based graduate course that meets weekly and requires students to submit an original analytical paper at the end of the semester. To encourage students to start their research early, I had them find, review, and improve existing Wikipedia articles related to their research interests rather than creating new entries. In my class, students learn about the terminology and concepts related to welfare states and poverty, various strategies for tackling social welfare issues, with the goal of interrogating the link between welfare regimes and gender inequality. Therefore, students have access to scholarly sources that could be referenced to improve existing articles related to welfare and poverty, while recognizing the role of gender. For example, a student noticed during initial review that an article on pandemic unemployment lacked data points on women, and another observed that an entry on red tape and administrative burden could benefit from additional references on equity implications. These observations shared during weekly class discussions underscore the importance of ongoing review and improvement to ensure that Wikipedia becomes a reliable and inclusive source of information.

I used Wikipedia assignments as part of the participation grade, recognizing that the contributions made by students may not always remain. Given Wikipedia’s open structure, I emphasized the importance of students completing training modules and exercises, and through completion, they earned participation points. Learning to evaluate Wikipedia articles, make revisions, and conduct peer reviews is just as valuable as sharing contributions publicly. Both activities help connect theory with practice. To encourage collaborative learning, I grouped students with similar research interests for peer reviews. On several occasions, students got to share and compare their references, which also helped them make progress on course paper. 

Because the final analytical paper carried more weight in the course grade, some students focused on making small but important edits, such as adding newer references and correcting grammatical errors to improve readability, but many went further. A student described the intersecting challenges faced by women, youth, and LGBTQ+ people who are experiencing homelessness in California and another expanded on the intricate ways welfare programs affect poverty. Many students also addressed racial bias and geographical disparity on Wikipedia by detailing the impact of Real ID Act on marginalized communities, incorporating government statistics published in Spanish to unpack machismo in Puerto Rico, adding new information on poverty in Indonesia, and providing additional details on public child care programs across countries. After addressing content gaps, students developed their own analytical papers to advance their original ideas and arguments, which were graded separately. 

I am still learning and experimenting with Wikipedia assignments. Navigating between Wiki Education dashboard and Wikipedia interface can be difficult, and instructors may need to carve out some class time to assist students having technical difficulties. Aligning Wiki Education training modules and exercises with course schedules also requires some trial and error, like moving deadlines, but I believe Wikipedia assignments have been useful for my students and I to think more critically about knowledge accessibility and implications of content gaps. Most importantly, incorporating Wikipedia assignments has given us the tangible opportunity to collectively experiment and discuss what it’s like to connect theory with practice in the era of social media. I am excited to continue this journey with my students, hopefully inspiring informed and inclusive dialogues about our future along the way. I am proud of my students for making a difference by contributing to more equitable knowledge access and engaging in feminist praxis. 

Interested in incorporating a Wikipedia assignment into your courses? Visit teach.wikiedu.org to learn more about the free resources, digital tools, and staff support that Wiki Education offers to postsecondary instructors in the United States and Canada. Apply by December 1, 2024 for priority consideration for spring 2025.

For panelist Mack Scott, visiting assistant professor of slavery and social justice at Brown University, incorporating the Wikipedia assignment into his courses like “This is America” and “Introduction to Native American and Indigenous Studies” gave students the chance to participate in a more meaningful project.

“Students have expressed how much they enjoy the assignment and how much harder they work on it,” said Scott. “They know that it’s not just me looking, and they feel the need to get it right – it adds more significance and more importance.” 

When she first introduced the assignment in 2017 while teaching at Howard University, Arizona State University’s Tracy Perkins wanted to give her students a real-world project and a much larger audience for their coursework. She also recognized the opportunity to engage her students in discussions surrounding Wikipedia and social justice within the context of the course.

“Wikipedia has been a very rich place to talk with them about different forms of knowledge inequality and knowledge distortion, and how that happens, and where that happens in academia and the press in particular,” said Perkins, noting how similar dynamics influence what and how content is shared on Wikipedia. 

Similar to Perkins, the other panelists use the assignment and the idea of Wikipedia itself to prompt powerful classroom dialogues. Delia Steverson, who specializes in 19th and 20th century African American literature at the University of Alabama, begins by asking her students a straightforward yet not-so-simple question: What is knowledge?

“How do we think we acquire knowledge?” said Steverson, continuing the line of questions she asks her students. “What does it mean to create knowledge? We have a very fruitful discussion about how and what we think about what actually is knowledge.” 

Panelist Jennifer Stoever taught with the Wikipedia assignment for the first time this spring at Binghamton University, incorporating the project into her course “Black Women and Creativity.” Stoever challenged her students to consider how underrepresented histories have been kept out of the academic and media publications that serve as sources for Wikipedia articles.

“[My students] are like, well, why don’t oral histories count?” said Stoever. “And that took them a step even farther back into the production of knowledge and the politics of knowledge production – we had some really incredible conversations. History is only as equitable as its sources and its writers.”

Each panelist also emphasized how courses of all disciplines can engage in the work to improve representation on Wikipedia – not just those which explicitly cover social justice topics. 

“Looking at knowledge production as a collective mission is key,” said Stoever.

Enhancing Wikipedia content related to historically underrepresented or misrepresented people and topics has been a driving force for Wiki Education since its inception, noted roundtable moderator Helaine Blumenthal, who manages the Wikipedia Student Program. 

When emphasizing a reflection made by Scott, Blumenthal summed up the critical influence of Wikipedia and its contributors: “The way we write about the past affects how we think about the present.”

Catch up on our Speaker Series on our YouTube channel, including “Wikipedia & Social Justice: How students are enhancing representation and equity,” and join us for our next program tomorrow, October 24!

Open Source Tech: Building the Wiki Education Dashboard

Thursday, October 24 at 9:30 am Pacific / 12:30 pm Eastern

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Interested in incorporating a Wikipedia assignment into your course? Visit teach.wikiedu.org to learn more about the free resources, digital tools, and staff support that Wiki Education offers to postsecondary instructors in the United States and Canada. Apply by December 1, 2024 for priority consideration for spring 2025.

It wasn’t very long ago that Wikipedia meant a website to look up information, a first stop in a learning journey. But now, it means so much more to my teaching partner and me. These days, the Wikipedia assignment means an unprecedented opportunity for our students to shape knowledge and influence culture – independent of TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and X, an opportunity to improve accessibility and increase authentic representation of marginalized communities. It means that students engage deeply with course content.

It wasn’t very long ago that my teaching partner and I hadn’t considered incorporating Wikipedia into our courses, and now, we cannot imagine teaching about social justice topics without the Wikipedia assignment – because it requires students to understand (and engage in) the politics of knowledge production, as Dr. Tracy Perkins pointed out when she introduced us to the idea of teaching with Wikipedia with the support of Wiki Education.

As persuasive as her presentation was, we weren’t fully convinced until we tried the Wikipedia assignment in our own class and saw our students appreciate the trainings and the practice exercises. Classroom conversations went from primarily practical information about course content to more theoretical discussions with students reminding each other that all assertions had to be cited, no new knowledge could be introduced during this stage. They truly embraced the Wiki Education ideals and standards. Facilitating meaningful discussion is one thing, but incorporating technology is quite another matter…

Truth be told, I put the “no logical” in “tech-no-logical”. So, the idea of using technology in an upper division class was intimidating. OK, it was a little worse than intimidating – I was pretty scared at first. But the Wiki Education team helped us set up our course and integrate the assignments into our syllabus. Dr. Perkins helped the students open accounts and navigate the dashboard and made sure that everyone was set up for success. Thanks to this support, we eased into the experience with our students leading the way.

When students selected articles, our primary requirement was that they research from a place of authenticity, meaning that students had to identify with some aspect of the information they were evaluating – the intent with this requirement was to amplify marginalized voices – not overwrite, overshadow or exclude them. Although we didn’t ask, students eagerly explained the connections to their topics, and these explanations increased classroom community and allowed students to appreciate each other’s areas of expertise.

Following those conversations, students’ confidence grew with each training exercise and every practice activity. When they posted their edits, we celebrated their scholarship and watched as the number of readers grew, slowly at first, and then exponentially by the end of that week! Students were elated by the readership statistics! We were excited for them, and so grateful to Dr. Perkins for sharing her experience and expertise with us.

However, as usual, there was an exception. One student’s work was removed almost immediately, and he was not surprised, because he said that he hadn’t put forth his best effort. That lesson was powerful for the class – they understood the reasons for posting work that had been cited, and they saw the swift consequences for posting work that did not meet this standard. When the work vanished so quickly, we reminded students that we were not grading the longevity of their edits. This debriefing conversation took us beyond the joy that the other students experienced when their work was being seen by so many readers. Together, we discussed the removal as a requisite measure of integrity.

And it was then that our students really grasped the magnitude of their edits – they understood that their work contributed to the greater good – a perfect segue into that next conversation about the politics of knowledge production, a topic we’d visited and revisited throughout the course. In this context, we asked students how members of marginalized communities continue to be underrepresented in these spaces (though there is progress in this area) and how cultural concerns can be erased and sometimes replaced. Each student provided accurate, relevant examples, and they mentioned the work of the vigilant editors who keep watch over the content, intending to remedy these issues. By the end of our course these students also considered themselves members of the Wiki Education team!

That first time teaching with the Wikipedia assignment made me a believer in the power of this process – my co-teacher and I learned a lot, but our students learned much more, and that is always our goal.

Thank you, Wiki Education, for providing these opportunities. Thank you, Dr. Perkins for your unwavering support, and thank you Helaine, Andrés, and Brianda for supporting the work of Wiki Education worldwide.

Interested in incorporating a Wikipedia assignment into your course? Visit teach.wikiedu.org to learn more about the free resources, digital tools, and staff support that Wiki Education offers to postsecondary instructors in the United States and Canada.

I first taught with Wikipedia in Winter 2024 as part of my Geographies of Energy and Sustainability class. Perhaps this was a teensy bit ambitious, given that it was both my first time teaching this course, and my first year teaching at University of Washington with four other new class preps. (Seriously, what was I thinking?)

I was immediately drawn to the idea of a Wikipedia project as a form of authentic assessment, where students engage real-world tasks that require and inherently embed content knowledge, research and writing skills, and analytical thinking. Rather than writing a paper that will never again see the light of day after I grade it, students publish their work on the world’s foremost online encyclopedia. It’s hard to think of a more real-world task than that!

Since it was my first time teaching with Wikipedia, I wanted to keep my finger on the pulse of the class so I would know what questions were emerging in real time. I decided to implement a weekly project diary. Each week, students wrote an entry with suggested prompts calibrated to that week’s assigned Wiki Education trainings and exercises. I didn’t have to create these prompts out of whole cloth. Optional modules such as the Assignment blog, Journal, and Reflective essay assignments all had significant overlap with my project diary idea. These modules – as well as Discussion modules such as Thinking about sources and plagiarism, What’s a content gap?, and Thinking about Wikipedia – also include suggested topics and discussion questions. 

I ended up with ten weekly diary assignments, averaging 4-6 suggested prompts per entry. Students wrote 300-400 words per entry, using the diary as a space to reflect on the process of developing their Wikipedia article. The prompts were optional – students could write about whatever was interesting or bothering them, using the prompts if desired. (In my one exception, I required students to answer specific prompts relating to the Wikipedia article they chose for the project.)

Project Diary Outcomes

Functionally, the diaries served my intended purpose: students used them to let me know when they were having problems, if they were unsure about something, or if there was anything they wanted me to know. I was able to address these concerns either in a written comment, or – if many students had similar questions – in class. However, the project diary had a number of additional benefits.

Embedding Low-Stakes Writing

I am a big fan of low-stakes writing, or as Peter Elbow defines it, “frequent, informal assignments that make students spend time regularly reflecting in written language on what they are learning from discussions, readings, lectures, and their own thinking” (p. 7). Low-stakes writing is an evidence-based practice that, when thoughtfully designed and implemented, promotes student engagement, critical thinking, and metacognition; improves student writing, final grades, exam performance, and learning goals; and reduces student anxiety.

College students can feel intimidated by writing, particularly when it is limited to high-stakes, formal writing assignments. Given that the Wikipedia project already felt more high stakes than even a regular paper (it will be published! On Wikipedia! Where people will see it!), I wanted the diary entries to function as a safe, non-judgmental writing space for students. To alleviate grade-related anxiety, I graded diary entries based on completion and thoughtful engagement with the prompts, rather than categories typically graded in formal writing like content, grammar, or punctuation. 

Formative Feedback

The diaries also served as an excellent source of formative feedback, for both students and myself. In contrast to high-stakes summative evaluation, formative assessment provide ongoing, low-stakes feedback that students use to identify and address gaps in their knowledge. I encouraged students to use the diaries as a safe place to ask questions and explore their own knowledge gaps, knowing it wouldn’t negatively impact their grade (e.g. “Reflect on the process of writing in a ‘neutral voice’. Are you finding this aspect of writing for Wikipedia difficult?”).

The diaries were also an excellent source of formative feedback for myself. This happened in real time for the current class. For instance, if many students were expressing concern about a particular topic, I knew they needed more time devoted to that subject. The diaries also provided useful data for improving future versions of the project, particularly when I included prompts directly soliciting feedback (e.g. “What suggestions do you have for how the Wikipedia project could be improved in the future?”).

Metacognition Skill-building

Some prompts functioned well as an informal space where students could practice their metacognitive skills by critically reflecting on their own learning process, a key aspect of significant, long-term learning. I encouraged this process through prompts that asked students to reflect on how certain activities contributed to their learning (e.g. “Did the peer review process help you think about your own draft/edits in any way?”). 

An important consideration is that reflective writing does not inevitably result in high-quality student metacognition. It’s important to thoughtfully draft journal prompts and make sure they are well-integrated with the purpose of the assignment, the course learning goals, and the instructor’s own teaching style and philosophy. 

Student-Teacher Interaction

Diary entries became a significant site of back-and-forth conversation between the students and myself outside of the classroom. This was particularly helpful for keeping in touch with students who weren’t in class, as well as better communicating with more introverted students. (This approach also aligns with the Universal Design for Learning principles of incorporating multiple modalities for student participation and engagement.)

Some students began asking more directed questions in their diary entries, knowing I would answer them in the comments or our next class. Students asked questions ranging from the technical (e.g. “None of the citations or images carried over”) to the broader and more conceptual (“For my final draft, I wonder what kind of sources I should concentrate on?”). This information also guided my feedback on their article drafts.

Some students also used the diaries as a way to update me on other things going on in their lives, even though I didn’t include any prompts on those subjects. In some cases, students let me know about circumstances that they worried would impact their performance. I learned that my students had care-taking responsibilities, medical issues, full or part-time jobs, and concerns about other classes. I deeply valued the trust that these students showed in sharing such information with me, and provided additional support for them where possible.

A key choice that made the assignments work in this way was keeping students’ diary entries private. A different choice could be having students post to a discussion board or class blog, where entries are available to all students. While students would be less likely to open up about personal topics, they can see where other students might be struggling with similar issues as them, and can respond to one another. While each approach has different strengths, either method can yield excellent benefits. 

Future Considerations

Based on my experiences, reflections, and student feedback, I have some considerations for anyone interested in including a similar assignment while teaching with Wikipedia.

First, to achieve the full potential of low-stakes writing and formative feedback, it is important to actually read and respond to student work in a timely way. Even if you lack time to individually respond to every diary entry, leave time in class or send a message summarizing major themes and answering questions that come up.

Relatedly, project diaries shouldn’t replace in-class time for project-related work. This was a major area of formative feedback from my students: they wanted more in-class time to support the Wikipedia project. 

Finally, make sure to consider what you want the primary function of your diaries to be! If metacognition is your goal, incorporate prompts that specifically ask students to critically reflect on their learning process. If you just want a space for students to check in with you, you probably don’t need to bother with prompts that don’t relate to that week’s trainings and tasks. 

Not only did the Wikipedia project provide a meaningful and authentic assignment with real-world impact, but the project diary yielded important insights into my students’ processes and thinking throughout the class. The utility and value of this assignment were highly evident for both me and my students. It is an addition to the project that I will keep using and refining as I continue to teach with Wikipedia.

Interested in incorporating a Wikipedia assignment into your course? Visit teach.wikiedu.org to learn more about the free resources, digital tools, and staff support that Wiki Education offers to postsecondary instructors in the United States and Canada. 

The numbers at a glance

In spring 2024, more than 6,000 students across 349 postsecondary courses:

• Added 4.74 million words to Wikipedia.
• Added nearly 45,000 references.
• Contributed to 5,660 articles.
• Created 426 new articles. 

These numbers are undoubtedly impressive, but thanks to the feedback we receive from both instructors and students, we’re also able to see the impact of the Wikipedia assignment beyond the numerical data.

Beyond the big numbers

Improved student learning outcomes, personal growth, and the exploration of topics like knowledge equity are just a few of the themes that consistently emerged from feedback provided by instructors and their students from the spring term.

Faculty participants expressed appreciation for the program’s comprehensive training modules, resources, and discussion prompts, noting fruitful classroom conversations centered on social justice, representation, and information access for all.

Faculty also remarked on the way the assignment can positively alter the traditional teacher-student relationship within the classroom, leading to true collaboration and increased trust.

“The relationship with my students was enhanced because we learned together how to problem solve,” said one spring term instructor. “It nicely broke down the classroom power dynamic.”

Another instructor echoed this reflection, explaining that the assignment allows students the chance to watch instructors learn – a view not often part of a postsecondary course. 

“[Students] enjoy feeling like I’m working with them, rather than lecturing them,” said the instructor, who taught with Wikipedia for the second time this spring.

Faculty and students alike also noted the way the Wikipedia assignment can refresh a course, bringing excitement and motivation to both the teaching and learning experiences.

“I’ve done this project with students for 3 semesters now,” said an instructor. “It always energizes me and gives a practical purpose to my teaching.”

And whether gathered from class-wide surveys or individual conversations, instructors continue to share their students’ reflections on the experience of editing Wikipedia as a course assignment. 

One instructor noted how their students reported unanimous enthusiasm for the assignment in their end-of-term course evaluation, underscoring how “every student saw its benefits and appreciated learning how Wikipedia worked.” 

“The Wikipedia assignment was one of the most exciting and rewarding experiences of my senior year,” said a student on the eve of graduation.

Even after more than a decade of supporting courses, hearing directly from students and faculty about the assignment’s impact on their personal and academic journeys remains as enriching and motivating for our team at Wiki Education as ever.

To ensure the ongoing success of both instructors and students in the program, Wiki Education continues to refine our existing resources, as well as create new materials and tools for courses. New student training modules launched for the fall term will include detailed guidance on how to communicate with other editors on Wikipedia, as well as how to specifically improve representation of historically underrepresented peoples and subjects. 

We can’t wait to see what’s next for the Wikipedia Student Program!

Interested in incorporating a Wikipedia assignment into your course? Visit teach.wikiedu.org to learn more about the free resources, digital tools, and staff support that Wiki Education offers to postsecondary instructors in the United States and Canada. Apply by September 8 for the fall 2024 term!